People are going to have to do make significant lifestyle changes if we are going to realistically combat climate change and other environmental issues.
No. Lifestyles will not need to change. If that were true then we would totally be screwed.
Methinks Zizek is right when he says "People are going to have to do make significant lifestyle changes".
Methinks Bob is right when he says "If that were true then we would totally be screwed".
Fixing CO2 emissions will eventually happen as the economics tell business more and more that that is where the money is. But that will not stop a lot of Global Warming happening in the meantime. But technology can't bring back the passenger pigeon, the right whale and the numerous other species doomed to extinction. Technology can't fix an aquifer once it is broken. Technology can't fix melting of the permafrost and release of methane already baked into the system. Technology cannot stop vast areas of rainforest being cut down for palm-oil plantations. Technology cannot prevent the corruption of political systems allowing greed and stupidity to decide our future.
We are totally screwed.
End of polemic.
1) We don't know what technology will be able to do. We have not yet invented a time machine that will let us look a hundred, thousand, or million years into the future.
2) We are screwed to some extent, but probably not totally screwed. It's already apparently the case that some humans are dying due to climate change. It's highly unlikely humans will go extinct.
On a scale of 0 to 10 where 10 is the end of humans (or life on the planet) we're past 0 but we can't determine where we now stand other than somewhere above 0.01.
"Technology can't fix an aquifer once it is broken. "
Wouldn't bet on that. Stop removing too much water. Increase flow into the aquifer.
"Technology cannot stop vast areas of rainforest being cut down for palm-oil plantations. Technology cannot prevent the corruption of political systems allowing greed and stupidity to decide our future."
These are not problems that need a technological solution. They are political problems. Those of us living in countries with democratically elected leaders can fix those problems with our votes. And we can elect people who lean on other countries to clean up their acts.
Yes, we are currently driving one of history's great extinction events in which a very large number of species will be lost. Someone recently stated that humans are about to eliminate all animals larger than cows.
That will be a great loss to those of us who value the diversity of the planet but evolution will create more diversity within the limits of the new climate we are creating. And, hopefully, technology along with natural carbon sequestering will bring the planet back to something similar to what we had in the middle of the previous century.